Answers
by Souris
Summary: Vaughn's unexpected news for Sydney has implications for them both


Answers  
By: Souris  
Rated: PG (for angst, angst and more angst)  
Disclaimer: They aren't mine. Never will be. Entertainment purposes. J.J. Abrams. Yadda yadda.  
Author's Note: I promise the next one will be a non-angsty caper fic! (Unless I change my mind, of course. ;-)  
  
Warehouse, City of Industry  
  
Sydney knew that something was wrong the moment that she saw him. Vaughn's posture was clearly that of someone preparing himself to deliver news that he didn't want to.  
  
"What is it? What's wrong?" she demanded by way of a greeting.   
  
"Sydney ... why don't you sit down?" He motioned toward a large crate.  
  
"Just tell me."  
  
"Please." His eyes were so serious. She complied, mind racing through a myriad of awful possibilities. Was he being removed as her handler again? There was no way she was putting up with Lambert again for a single second.  
  
He didn't sit. Instead, he paced slowly for a moment, then turned to face her. She could see him steeling himself, and she found herself doing the same.  
  
"I ran your mother's books by Crypto. It was KGB code in the margins. They found a lot of it."  
  
"So my father was a double agent." Sydney's heart sank. Even though she had suspected it, had even convinced herself of it, some part of her must have believed -- or just hoped -- that it wasn't true. Otherwise, it wouldn't hurt so damn much to have it confirmed.  
  
"Just ... just let me finish, OK?" Vaughn said, and the brittle tone of his voice told Sydney that there was worse yet to come.  
  
"Some of the messages were ... curious. They didn't seem to ... fit with that theory."  
  
"I don't understand. So my father might *not* have been KGB? Is that what you're saying?"  
  
"Sydney, do you remember the case that was referred to in your father's files? The one where the details had been deleted? Well, I called in every favor I had at the Agency -- and a couple I didn't -- and I got ahold of the files."  
  
"What did they say?"  
  
"Sydney, the FBI investigation of your father was only the initial one. He was cleared, completely. But it resulted in another investigation, a more serious one ... of your mother."  
  
"What?!" Sydney recoiled from his words, sure that she must have heard wrong. She *had* to have heard wrong.  
  
"I'm so sorry, Sydney. It was your mother who was working for the KGB. She used some kind of drug, a truth serum, to find out Agency secrets from your father and pass them on to Moscow. He didn't know. He didn't realize what she was doing. She was the one that Agent Calder was after the night that --"  
  
Sydney shot to her feet, her hand making contact with Vaughn's cheek with a loud smack. The sound reverberated in the warehouse. "That's a *lie*!" she screamed at him, shaking with fury. How could he say these things? It was ludicrous and impossible and *cruel*.  
  
She raised her hand to strike him again, but he grabbed her wrist in a surprisingly strong grasp. "Sydney, I wouldn't lie to you. Ever. And, God, not about something like this." His voice was soft but intense, and she felt much of the anger drain out of her as quickly as it had surged. He let go of her wrist, and she let it drop to her side.  
  
"Then it's a mistake. It's not true. My mother was a *teacher*. She taught English. She wasn't a *spy*."  
  
"I wish it were a mistake. I thought it had to be, too. But I read the files, the evidence. Sydney, they monitored three meetings between her and a known KGB operative. The transcripts are in there. They set a trap, used bogus information. That information was passed on, and it could only have come from her. They found traces of the drug in your father's system afterward."  
  
Sydney sat down abruptly. "This can't be real." She stared blankly ahead for a moment. "If it's ... if it's true ... why was my father driving when the FBI was chasing them? Was he running away with her? Helping her escape? Why would he do that?"  
  
"You should probably ask him that," Vaughn said. "But my guess is ... because he loved her."  
  
"Even after she --?" Sydney shook her head, but it wouldn't be cleared. "I still can't -- I can't believe this. It's insane. It's not true," she repeated. But this time, her voice wasn't quite as sure.  
  
"Just ... just read the files, OK?" he said gently, pulling them out of a briefcase and placing them in her hands. "I have to get them back before morning."  
  
How could something so earth-shaking be reduced to three inches' worth of paper and manila cardboard? she wondered. They weren't even all that heavy.  
  
She opened them.  
  
As she read the files, he wondered again if he should tell her. It was something that he'd struggled with since he read them himself. After much debating, he had decided to leave it up to her and fate. If she noticed, he would tell her. If she didn't, then he could see no real point in adding to her pain. It was important and he would tell her later -- when she hadn't just been leveled with the emotional equivalent of an atomic bomb.  
  
She read the files with growing nausea. Her heart rebelled against the things they contained, but her mind recognized them for the truth. There was too much evidence. Too many details. The transcripts. Her father's statements. Photographs. And a list of all the missions that her mother had compromised. There must have been fifteen. And at least a half-dozen of them had resulted in agents' deaths, their names spelled out in cold, black letters. No details, just names of men and women who never returned home to their loved ones because of her mother. She read them all, each name a damning indictment.  
  
He knew the exact moment that she found it. He had known in his heart that she would.  
  
"Vaughn?" She looked up at him, her brown eyes filled with a dawning horror. "There's a name here, one of the agents killed in Marseilles --"  
  
"Thomas Richard Vaughn." He nodded. "My father."  
  
"Ohmigod." His words hit with an almost physical blow, so that she couldn't seem to draw a breath. The files slid from her hands and scattered onto the floor, but she didn't really notice. All she could focus on was the sound of the blood rushing through her ears and his pained gray-green eyes.  
  
She stood up, but she got only a few steps before the room started to tilt and her knees buckled. Instantly, he was beside her, supporting her, his hands firm on her arms.  
"Sydney, where do you think you're going?" he demanded gently as he sat her back down on the crate, this time sitting beside her.  
  
"I don't know, I ... I feel like I don't know anything anymore. How could she...?" She could no longer hold back the tears; they streamed down her cheeks in great rivulets. "I feel like I just lost her again."  
  
Without a word, he gathered her into his arms. She clung to him as to a lifeline, her arms tight around him. She began to sob, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. She cried for a long, long time, as if she would never stop, as if there were not enough tears to wash away her pain. And he just held her, wishing desperately that there was something more he could do.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Gradually, her sobs lessened and her grip loosened. Still he stroked her hair, and still she kept her head on his chest, letting the sound of his heartbeat sink into her, soothing, steadying, keeping the nausea at bay.  
  
"I'm sorry I hit you," she finally sniffed.  
  
He smiled into her hair. "It's OK. Just remind me to stand farther back the next time I have to piss you off."  
  
He was rewarded with the tiniest of laughs into his shoulder, and he treasured it. It didn't last long, though. She sniffed again, and this time her voice was even smaller. "I feel like my entire life has been a lie. I mean, did she ever really love my father? Did she really love me? Was I just ... a cover?"  
  
He forced her face upward to look at him. "Sydney, don't you dare. This doesn't change *anything* about who you are. You are still the same amazing person who walked into this warehouse. Nothing that happened in the past, nothing that someone else did can change that."  
  
She smiled shakily up at him, immeasurably touched. He was so positive, so sure of his words, that the uncertainties and doubts that had begun clamoring in her mind suddenly seemed smaller, quieter. "Thank you," she told him, trying to imbue those two words with all the sincerity in her heart. They seemed so inadequate.  
  
"Anytime." He smiled back at her, a seldom-seen smile whose power took her by surprise. She knew immediately that her life would be somehow lessened if she never saw that smile again.  
  
That realization triggered another doubt, awful and insidious. She looked down for a moment, hating the possibility but unable to ignore it. She would be a coward if she did. "I'll understand if you want to be taken off my case. If you don't want to work with me anymore, because of what my mother did. Because of your father."  
  
She felt him stiffen, and for a moment her heart dropped. "Sydney, what do you think I am?" He seemed genuinely startled and almost a little angry. "I'm not going to leave you. OK? None of this changes how I feel about you."  
  
Just how is that? she wondered. But she didn't ask it out loud. She didn't think she was ready for the answer, not tonight. There had been enough to process for one day, for one *lifetime*. So she simply nodded and lay her head back on his chest and was grateful for the comfort she found there. For now, that was enough of an answer.  
  
[Author's note: Did you spot the little Michael Vartan/"Friends" in-joke?] 


End file.
